23 Degrees and Windy
by pyrebi
Summary: When he kisses her, Amelia goes "ugh" against his mouth. This is not encouraging.


Here, have some pre-series Jimmy/Amelia. I don't even know, okay? During the scene when Castiel was in the hospital in 5.21, all I could think was "oh my god look at his mouth. D: Amelia would never let Jimmy's lips get that chapped!" and thus this weird little thing was born. No, I don't know how I looked at sexy whumped!Cas and came up with this instead, either.

Set in January 1995 at the four-year Christian institution Greenville College in Greenville, IL.

Enjoy?

* * *

**23° and Windy**

**

* * *

**

"Ugh," Amelia Perry says, against his mouth. This is not encouraging.

Jimmy, in that half-panicked way that one always thinks when one is put on the spot, goes through a mental checklist of why kissing her might've elicited that reaction. It's not like he hasn't done it before, and she always seemed to like it then. He hadn't eaten anything particular offensive that day, if he recalled correctly. Maybe it was time to do laundry, but he was pretty sure he'd given this shirt the sniff test and it had passed.

Drawing his internal survey to a distinctly unsatisfying close, he pulls back and says, "What?" He hopes he hadn't sounded as injured as he thinks he had.

She's staring at his mouth, her eyebrows drawing together in a way that screams disapproval. It's practically the same face she'd made the first time she'd seen the inside of his dorm room (his dirty socks breed like tribbles, he swears, but at least he cleaned up before she came over this time) and just a shade less disappointed than the one she'd given him the time he'd let slip that he still hadn't turned in his economics project which had been due three days before.

"_What?_" he asks again, voice shooting upwards.

"What is _wrong_ with you? Do you not know how to use chapstick?" she admonishes in return.

"Excuse me?" he counters, bewildered.

"Your _lips_," she says, as if this is supposed to explain anything. He reaches up and touches them, briefly. They _are_ kind of sore, but that's probably because they were bleeding earlier.

When he offers this explanation to Amelia, she looks at him in horror, as though he'd just told her that he murders kittens in his spare time or that he was considering converting to Catholicism.

"James Novak, that is _appalling_," she says. "My lips have only bled once in my entire life, and that is when Joe Ward shoved me off of the seesaw and I landed face-first on gravel."

If Jimmy had any sort of self-preservation instincts at all, he would've just nodded along silently. Instead, what he does is reply, "No, it's normal for me. They bleed all the time in winter, because of the cold."

Amelia looks like she's weighing the worth of their relationship against how many times she's going to have to beat her head against a wall in order to put up with him.

"You know, baby," she says, carefully and gently, as if talking to a particularly slow child, "if you used _chapstick_, that wouldn't happen anymore."

"Condescension is my _favorite_," he snits back, because he really truly hates that tone of voice she takes.

Her entire face draws into this tight little smile that telegraphs _trouble_ at him, and her eyebrows shoot up as she chirps, "Okay then!" He watches warily as she begins to root around in the oversized purse sitting beside her on his bed, pulling out a wad of tissues and about a dozen highlighters and a well-worn New Testament before her hand emerges victorious with a tube of shimmery pink lip gloss.

"Mel, no," he orders in what he's fairly certain is his most authoritative tone.

She twists the lid off, her tight smile unwavering. Then, as he tries staring her down, she snakes out a hand and seizes his jaw.

So much for his most authoritative tone.

"Amelia! Knock it off!" he growls, twisting in her grip, not wanting to hurt her but certainly not wanting to stick around to be dolled up.

"_Jimmy,_" she says firmly, and it makes him pause just long enough for her to get a good swipe at his face with the little brush, and he tastes indeterminate artificial fruit flavoring. Thus defeated, he turns his face away as she applies a thick layer of the goop to his lips. He can feel it on his teeth and he is _not amused._

"Am I all pretty now, Mel?" he grits as she twists the cap back on and chucks the tube back into her purse.

Instead of answering, she puts her hands on his shoulders and kisses him, sudden and open and heavy. The heat of her mouth seems to liquefy the gloss, and her lips slide all over his. He throws his arms behind him and locks his elbows to keep from being laid flat on his back, and the Lord help him if that isn't a temptation all on its own. He's aware mostly of the hollow sound of his own heartbeat and the ineffable flavor of _pink_, but then...

"Ow," he mutters into her mouth, then "_ow,_" again, louder this time.

Amelia pulls back, her expression quizzical. Her own mouth is now ringed in gloss, but Jimmy's more concerned with touching his fingers to his face and inspecting them.

"You busted my lip open again," he says, his tone not just a little accusatory, holding up his blood-flecked fingerpads. Amelia, in what he can only assume is a moment of uncharacteristic stupidity, licks her own lips and then gags. Blood and lipgloss don't go together well, it seems.

"Well," she huffs, "that was _supposed _to be positive reinforcement."

He snags one of the tissues she had unloaded from her purse earlier and holds it to his mouth, lowering it long enough to say, "I'll stop and get some chapstick from the bookstore tomorrow, all right?"

She claps him on the shoulder and smiles. "Good man."


End file.
